RALEIGH METAL RECYCLING
METAL COMMODITIES AND RECYCLING REPORT
MAY 4TH, 2015
2310 GARNER ROAD
RALEIGH, NC, 27610
This
is the Commodities and Recycling report, brought to you by BENLEE the industry
leader in roll off trailers and open top scrap trailers, as well as Raleigh and
Goldsboro Metal Recycling, the leaders in North Carolina for Scrap Metal,
Cardboard, Electronics and Junk Cars.
Today
is Monday, May 4 th, 2015. My
name is Greg Brown, President and CEO of the companies.
While
volumes coming in to recycling operations remain severely depressed, there was some
positive news in the commodities markets last week.
 |
| AMM - Steel Production Graph - Raleigh Metal Recycling Steel Prices |
Steel
production in the United States hit a two month high and at least two steel
mills announced $20 per ton price increases.
 |
| AMM - Scrap Metal Prices Graph - Raleigh Metal Recycling (919) 828-5426 |
This
is leading many to believe that the stabilization in scrap steel prices in
recent months will lead to increases this week as we enter ferrous trading week.
In fact there was word of at least one
up market last Friday. On the negative
side, despite oil prices now near 4 month highs, the oil rig count, hit a new multi-year
low last week.
With
the rig count at 679 rigs that is a staggering 58% below last October’s high of
1,609. Of course this is important due
to drilling rigs use enormous mounts of steel.
 |
| WTRG Economics - Saudi Arabia Rig Count Graph - Raleigh Metal Recycling |
Interestingly,
Saudi Arabia is doing all it can to keep prices low and to have the U.S. reduce
our drilling. Their rig count has been
hitting historic highs in recent months.
Also, last week the large publically traded company, Waste Management released
their earnings.
While
they were up, they said that recycling commodities, which were forecasted to be
a drag on earnings of 3-5 cents per share, was now going to be worse, and would
be a drag of about 10 cents per share. This
is just another sign that while we see some green shoots in the recycling,
things are far from great.
 |
| CME Group - Copper Prices Graph - Raleigh Scrap Metal Recycling |
As
for positive news, last week’s good economic news in Europe, caused the Euro to
strengthen to a two month high of 1.12 to the dollar, up from $1.05 of a few
weeks ago. The weakened dollar was a key
reason, that copper hit multi month high last week.
 |
| Kitco - Aluminum Prices Graph - Raleigh Metal Recycling |
Aluminum,
while not back to where it was about 6 months ago, hit at multi month high and is
now actually higher than it was a year ago.
 |
| tradingeconomics.com - US Personal Saving Graph - Raleigh Metal Recycling |
There
has yet to be a major translation to consumers spending money saved on gas at
the pump, but when that happens, steel consumption should rise. At this point, consumers are choosing to save
this extra money. We remain optimistic
that consumer spending will soon rise and will help recycling volumes, prices
and steel production.
There
was bad news for a number of scrap yards and demolition customers last week in
that they received letters from the bankruptcy court for Hayes Iron and Metal,
demanding a “Claw Back”.
A
claw back is when a company goes bankrupt if the court can prove preferential
treatment of suppliers, the court can demand money back that was paid out 90
days, before the bankrupt filing.
There
were no changes to our copper prices in North Carolina last week, with our
Raleigh prices of #1 copper being purchased for $2.36 per pound. Prepared Steel is still being purchased for
$6.25 per hundred pounds.
With
that we hope all have a Safe and Profitable week. Tune in next week for the Commodity and Recycling
report.
